CultureMap

As many of you know, the person I’ve only known as a grandfather, Lionel, has Alzheimer’s. It has gotten worse and these past few months have been difficult for my family. I decided to write a fairly personal post on CultureMap about it. It was a tough one to write.

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“Yesterday, Lionel couldn’t make it to the bathroom fast enough,” my mother told me. “I guess he made quite the mess.”

I lingered on the mental image of this for a few seconds before I answered my mother.

“Why is he unable to make it to the bathroom in time?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess he can’t walk fast enough.”

She paused.

“He told Grandma that he should just kill himself.”

The only man I’ve ever known as a grandfather has Alzheimer’s. I spoke about his disease in the past, but so much has changed since then. The tipping point has dropped. We were fearful it would come with a loud bang, but instead it’s been a never-ending, tortuous whisper.

Do you ever find yourself catching an old flick and wondering, “Oh man, where did that actor disappear to?” Then you scramble to Wikipedia only to find out that they died of bone cancer in 1978 and you become completely despondent for the rest of the evening (John Cazale anyone?)

Sometimes actors or actresses don’t have as sad of a fate as Cazale, but they simply stop acting or fizzle out. Sometimes we miss them. The guys and gals listed below don’t need to make a “comeback.” A comeback makes it sound like they fell out of favor with society and they’ve been thrust into the naughty corner until society says they can come out — no, they simply need to come back. Come back into our lives and make us whole again.

Here are a list of actor and actresses I liked to see put back on first billing:

Rick Moranis

I could write an entire post about The Moranis, or as I like to call him, “My Little Nugget”….

The weirdest thing happened the other day. The piece I wrote about what the next hipster cities will be was read by more than 45 people and my mother. In fact, in some of the towns I mentioned in the post, the article got passed around like a cheerleader in a frat house (sorry to any of you who were cheerleaders. I’m not sorry if you were in a frat).

The article predicts that Chattanooga, Tennessee, Asheville, North Carolina, Burlington, Vermont, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Richmond, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland will be the next hipster cities.

Sometimes it feels like there is no place more hipster-plentiful than Austin, Texas. The city has become the poster child of what young creatives and entrepreneurs are discharging into this world. When you look up the word ‘Austin’ in the thesaurus, the words, ‘old-timey facial hair,’ ‘your grandmother’s eyewear,’ ‘college degree in food carting,’ ‘bee hive hoarding’ and ‘Which Wich eating‘ appear. It’s true that there is no escaping the fauxhemian gorilla-whale that is running amok in our city.

But are other cities unscathed by the beast? Smaller, up-and-coming cities that are like how Austin was before ‘we’ showed up? Cities that hipsters can flock to now that other, older hipsters have crimped their style of being on the forefront of a burgeoning scene? The answer is yes.

Are other cities unscathed by the beast? Smaller, up-and-coming cities that are like how Austin was before ‘we’ showed up?

I secretly love reading self-help articles written by people who have no formal training in telling you how to live your life.

In my scavenging for these articles on such sites like Huffington Post, The Frisky and any bubbly-logo’d site aimed towards my demographic, I occasionally come across posts condemning the act of longing. “Longing prevents us from fulfilling our dreams and moving forward in life,” they say. If we’re stuck in the past and long for people, places and things that are realistically unattainable, then we will never truly enjoy our lives.

These articles often hit home for me, because I realize that I’m a person that does indeed live in the past and not “in the now.” I long for my childhood, places I’ve lived, places I’ve never been to, my family, my friends, people that I miss. I’m constantly suspended in a perpetual state of romanticism. I also realize that all of these factors play an intricate part in my writing. They are daily inspiration and reoccurring Continue Reading

(art) Who doesn’t love recycled art? Who? WHO?! TELL ME!!! Various creative artists came up with some interesting reworkings of billboards. My favorite is the billboard swing, though it seems kind of terrifying. Like the sort of thing that you think would be a good idea to try after you had five Rumple Minze. (via WebUrbanist)

(lifestyle) Don’t know why this surprises me, but Texas is NOT the #1 most drunken state. Oh wait, I know why it surprises me, because EVERYONE IS DRUNK ALL OF THE TIME IN AUSTIN. Can you guess which state is the drunkest? (via Happy Place)

(fashion) Some dudes in Austin were featured in Conde Nast’s Menswear for their style icon-ess. I know one of the guys, but I made a promise not to talk about him, so I’m not sure exactly what I’m talking about right now. (via WWD)

(technology) This news came out last week, but do you know that they’re making an electric DeLorean? Like, the DeLorean needs to be anymore cool. It’s so cool, I can’t Continue Reading

During the holidays, we drove through West Texas and New Mexico. A trip I’ve done before and a journey I never tire of.

It had all the makings of a romantic anecdote.

Four of us were nestled in the body off an all-terrain truck. We listened to country music from the 1950s. We marveled at the thousands of wind turbines, the out-of-commission gas stations, the dead deer and the pink skyline. I drifted in and out of sleep comforted by the fact that I had slipped back into time.

Driving through West Texas and New Mexico makes you feel like you’re cool as shit. That you’re the only person brave enough to step foot into this frontier. For the duration of the drive, you entertain moving to a town called Milagro or Truth or Consequences and you know that you could be happy there. You’d grow your hair long, make art out of found desert objects and create a shrine to Georgia O’Keefe.

As we made our way into Santa Fe, I took note of the sand colored pueblo-style houses with splashes Continue Reading

Previously, saying that made me collapse into a fit of inconsolable defeat. Once, on the phone with my father about my car being paid off when I’m 30, I fell to the floor during the middle of the conversation. All it took was me saying, “Well, when I’m 30…” and my brain processed that as someone taking a bat to the back of my knees. My father heard heaving gasps on the other line and waited for my two minute bawl fest to conclude before daring to continue the topic at hand.

I never thought I’d make it past 29. Not because I have a craving for horse tranquilizers or a death wish obsession with Kurt Cobain, but because it seemed nearly impossible to imagine a life past that. My brain simply would shut down when thinking about my 30s. Or maybe, much like the Mayans, my internal calendar simply stops on 2012. Being an only child of divorce, I never planned out my future to include things like marriage and children, so a life after 30 seemed Continue Reading

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday and that most of you are still on break and not at work reading this post.

Wanted to share with you last Friday’s CultureMap post. It meant a lot to me. It’s about the the generous and familial culture in Texas and how inspiring and comforting it is.

I hope I don’t offend any of my fellow Upstate New Yorkers here. I think you’ll get what I mean…

I Wasn’t Born in Texas, But I Got Here at an Average Speed

I’m a Yankee. Born and raised in the armpit of the Rust Belt. In the land of fallen big box giants, frost-bitten morale and Wonder Bread tans.

I have not lived in the North in over seven years, but one can never really change where they’re from, right? Where you were born is in your blood. Always.
The fact that I’m a Yankee is not something I advertise, but it’s difficult to hide when you develop instant heartburn just looking at Polvo’s salsa. The sweat Continue Reading

Some of you guys might be familiar with this story for I’ve broached the topic of me being friends with an acquitted murderer/b-list actor before. If you’re not familiar with it, check out my story over at CultureMap. Murder, sex and purple pearl snap shirts. Such a wonderful children’s story for the Holidays.

Being Friends With An Acquitted Murderer (and B-List Actor) Is Not Easy